RONNIE BURKETT
A Passion For Puppetry
Ronnie Burkett has been captivated by puppetry since the age of seven, and began touring his shows around Alberta at the age of fourteen. Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes was formed in 1986, continuously playing on Canada’s major stages, and as a guest company on numerous tours abroad.
Ronnie received the 2009 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, The Herbert Whittaker Drama Bench Award for Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Theatre, a Village Voice OBIE Award, and four Citations of Excellence from the American Center of the Union Internationale de la Marionnette. In 2019, Ronnie Burkett was appointed as an Officer of The Order of Canada and in 2024 he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.
Wonderful Joe and Little Willy are the latest productions from Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, following the international successes of Forget Me Not, Penny Plain, Billy Twinkle, 10 Days on Earth, Provenance, and the “Memory Dress Trilogy” of Tinka’s New Dress, Street of Blood and Happy. The Daisy Theatre, Ronnie’s wildly popular and ever-changing marionette vaudeville show, and the Daisy Christmas show, Little Dickens, continue touring to great acclaim. Little Willy is Ronnie’s uproarious production where William Shakespeare guides the cast of The Daisy Theatre in a production of Romeo and Juliet. Ronnie is presently touring his productions, Wonderful Joe, Little Willy, Little Dickens and The Daisy Theatre.
Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes is represented globally by John Lambert & Assoc.
20 Video Interviews with Ronnie Burkett…
CURRENT PRODUCTIONS
“Paint gold in the part of me that is broken. Let my faultline shine, these golden precious scars are fine, divine, and mine.”
Joe and his dog Mister lose their home, and facing separation, head into the world for one last grand adventure together. The world seems broken, but Joe sees magic in the mundane, beauty amidst brutality, and life in the lost and lonely. He and Mister encounter Mother Nature, Santa Claus, Jesus and the Tooth Fairy, witness a troupe of homeless players in a cardboard theatre, and show a disenfranchised teen how to jump over the moon in a playground rocket ship. A seemingly simple tale of a simple man, Wonderful Joe is a love letter to imagination, hope, and the art of filling broken hearts with gold. Ronnie Burkett brings this story to life with his signature style of beautiful puppetry and solo performance, with a glorious score and soundscape by John Alcorn.
THE REVIEWS ARE OUT
“Wonderful Joe is a masterful blend of adult themes and childhood whimsy, a flight of fancy grounded in pressing social issues. It’s a celebration of life on society’s margins and a reminder of the magic that can be found in the most unlikely places. Burkett once again proves himself a virtuoso of his craft, creating a theatrical experience that is at once thought-provoking, heartwarming, and utterly unforgettable” Deirdre Kelly (Critics at Large)
“Burkett and a cast of diminutive cohorts come this time with a real play, a funny, thoughtful, and deeply poignant one … it’s a beauty of a piece, in its generosity of spirit and affection for the urban demimonde, imaginative in conception and creation, and impeccable in design and craftsmanship..” Liz Nicholls, (12thnight.ca)
“But this show, not recommended for audiences under 16, is one of the most mature and moving works of Burkett’s career. At its heart, it’s about community, empathy and imagination. All things that help elevate the lives of average Joes everywhere” (Toronto Star)
“Ronnie Burkett’s latest work is a beautiful and intensely human show from the master of marionettes…. what a show it was, a true masterclass from an artist at the top of his craft… Wonderful Joe is, true to its name, wonderful… “ Justin Bell (Edmonton Journal)
“Wonderful Joe is a melancholy work with plenty of dark content – puppets aside, it’s not for kids – but the stars poke through, like the golden filaments of kintsugi that can repair a broken dish or broken heart.” (Globe and Mail)
WONDERFUL JOE premiered in 2024 with performances at Theatre Network (Edmonton AB Canada), Stanford Live (Stanford CA USA) and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (Los Angeles CA, USA)
WONDERFUL JOE was created with the support of The Explore and Create Programme of the Canada Council for the Arts
Co-commissioned by Stanford Live (Stanford CA, USA), UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (Los Angeles CA, USA) and TO Live (Toronto ON, Canada) with developmental support from Theatre Network (Edmonton AB, Canada) and in collaboration with Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes (Toronto ON Canada)
CURRENT PRODUCTION
The Daisy Theatre gang is back with the Daisy Theatre’s take on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The Bard himself joins The Daisy Theatre cast for a twisted retelling of this timeless tale.
Current Production
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Esmé is the sun.”
The Daisy Theatre gang is back with their irreverent hijinks as they take on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in LITTLE WILLY. Burlesque star Dolly Wiggler starts the show with an Elizabethan striptease in this riotously funny improvised mash-up of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays. All the leading ladies of the Daisy ensemble battle for the role of Juliet, including faded diva Esme Massengill in a boozy interpretation of the lovesick ingénue. Beloved audience favourites Schnitzel and Mrs. Edna Rural are back in supporting roles, and adding to the fun and mayhem.
The Bard himself joins The Daisy Theatre cast for a twisted retelling of this timeless tale.
INFO ON PRODUCTION
NEWS ARTICLES: FULL REVIEWS
CURRENT PRODUCTION
The Daisy Theatre Iconic Characters bring you this Burkett-esque retelling of A Christmas Carol
Favorite characters from The Daisy Theatre ringing in the Christmas Spirits with a raucous adults only holiday treat!
LITTLE DICKENS
– Current Production –
Favorite characters from The Daisy Theatre ringing in the Christmas Spirits with a raucous adults only holiday treat!
In Ronnie Burkett’s Little Dickens, the cast of The Daisy Theatre take on the beloved holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, in the merriest marionette mash-up ever. Faded Daisy diva, Esmé Massengill, plays the role of miserly, drunken, bitter Esmé Scrooge, in this Burkett-esque retelling of the Dickens classic. As always with an improvised Daisy show, there is no set script, and in the journey of Esmé Scrooge toward redemption, she encounters all the Daisy favourites portraying Dickens’ familiar characters. In keeping with the vaudeville show theme of The Daisy Theatre, popular Christmas songs will feature in a burlesque opening, sultry jazz solos, and the merriment of Fezziwig’s party. A raucous, adults-only holiday treat, Little Dickens holds true to the heart of A Christmas Carol by featuring The Daisy Theatre’s most iconic and beloved character, Schnitzel, as Tiny Tim.
“Little Dickens, before being a puppet show, is the show of a puppeteer, who manipulates both his puppets and his audience. A phenomenon that must be seen.”
“ I was in awe of his formidable stamina as he is puppet master, set changer, curtain puller, songwriter and storyteller all in one”
“Ronnie Burkett’s Little Dickens is a retelling of A Christmas Carol but with more bah-hum-buggery, fewer heartwarming lessons in morality, and a whole lot of excellent banter”
“Ronnie Burkett’s Little Dickens is a retelling of A Christmas Carol but with more bah-hum-buggery, fewer heartwarming lessons in morality, and a whole lot of excellent banter”
“It was a delight to see Dickens’s timeless characters given a glorious and slightly smutty twist”
“…bold storytelling, black humour, and unscripted razor-edged dialogue”
“I’d recommend seeing it twice because it’s guaranteed you’ll be laughing so hard you’ll have missed some of the great lines the first time around”
INFO ON PRODUCTION
NEWS ARTICLES: FULL REVIEWS
CURRENT PRODUCTION
The Daisy Theatre Breaks Down the Fourth Wall
The Daisy Theatre is the thirteenth production from Theatre of Marionettes. Every Ronnie Burkett production is ground breaking, but The Daisy Theatre breaks down the fourth wall as well. With more audience participation than ever before, the integration of the audience makes every night of the production different than the night before.
THE DAISY THEATRE
– Current Production –
Nightly improvisation, variety numbers, music, monologues and morality tales, with the resident company of over thirty marionette characters
The Daisy Theatre is puppeteer Ronnie Burkett unleashed…unscripted, by the seat of his pants, manipulating and voicing his characters through variety acts, impromptu monologues, musical numbers and audience participation, featuring a cast of forty marionette characters. Since its premiere at the 2013 Luminato Festival, this unique performance event has played to thousands, with audiences and critics alike falling in love with the ridiculous, tender, outrageous antics of Daisy Theatre favorites Esme Massengill, Mrs. Edna Rural and beloved fairy child Schnitzel. Variety numbers parody theatrical genres from opera, music hall, Las Vegas, French cabaret and vaudeville with characters such as lounge singer Rosemary Focaccia, marionette ventriloquist Meyer Lemon, chanteuse Jolie Jolie, and “Canada’s oldest and worst actress” Miss Lillian Lunkhead, in what Vancouver’s Georgia Straight calls “one of the best shows you’ll ever see”. With the ever-changing content and nightly improv in an intimate setting, The Daisy Theatre is truly a “see it more than once” theatrical experience.
THE DAISY THEATRE was co-commissioned by The Luminato Festival (Toronto) and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA (Los Angeles) in association with Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes (Toronto)
“The Daisy Theatre is Canada’s premiere puppeteer Ronnie Burkett unleashed, unscripted, uninhibited and unapologetic. This means the management should install seat belts because Burkett flying by the seat of his pants means it’s a rollercoaster ride for the audience.”
“While Burkett creates a dazzling array of puppets that are brought to life in intimate detail in The Daisy Theatre, it’s those voices that transform The Daisy Theatre into one of the more excellent shows you’ll see all season — maybe ever. The Daisy Theatre changes every night, but one thing won’t: that’s the sheer brilliance of Ronnie Burkett.”
“Ronnie Burkett… is insanely skilled, he is fearlessly willing to go wherever the moment takes him, and the sense of giddy possibility that his creativity releases is a gift. The Daisy Theatre is one of the best shows you’ll ever see. What are you waiting for? Pick up the phone.”
“The Daisy Theatre is uproariously funny, it’s smart, and it’s touching. Burkett is at the top of his craft, and is a Canadian treasure. He has honed his craft to the point where it looks as if he’s just having fun half the time, as he at times he speaks directly to the audience as either marionette or puppeteer, and yet it’s still a production of a very high calibre. He has an incredible ability to voice singlehandedly a heated argument with puppet lips flapping at a mile a minute. Not only that, but his intricately designed puppets are so expressive they seem human, despite being wooden and less than two feet tall.”
“Burkett’s mastery of his craft and the beauty of his handmade puppets makes the comedy funnier, the raunch raunchier and keeps the heartfelt and heartwarming moments, genuinely sweet and moving.“
“Daisy is a raucous good time, a night out in the company of a puckish agent provocateur whose wits are as quick as his virtuosity is dazzling.“
“4 1⁄2 stars out of 5 Canadian puppet maestro Ronnie Burkett had the opening night audience eating out of his hand with his extraordinary production, The Daisy Theatre, as part of Sydney Festival. Burkett’s attention to detail is astonishing, his skill incredible. This is a thought provoking, revue-style production, not a ‘traditional’ puppet show, and while certainly not for children it is incredibly moving and powerful.“
“In its Daisy Theatre guise some 40 characters haunt his backstage area: a cast of misfits, drunks, loudmouths, cutie pies and artistes of dubious repute, any of whom might be incorporated according to his whim on a given night….its transformative magic of making us extend our imaginations was real. Just don’t take the kids.“
INFO ON PRODUCTION
NEWS ARTICLES: FULL REVIEWS
NEWS ARTICLES: FULL REVIEWS continued
RONNIE BURKETT’S RETIRED PRODUCTIONS
FORGET ME NOT is an Immersive Audience Participation Experience
Welcome to “The New Now”, where written words are forbidden and an underground movement of hand-drawn love letters is a powerful act of defiance.
Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh
ESTIMATED RUN TIME: 1 HR 45 MIN
Forget Me Not is commissioned by Luminato.
This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.
Retired Production
Beloved puppet master, Ronnie Burkett, presented Forget Me Not, the tender and provocative call-to-arms for hope and the enduring power of love.
FORGET ME NOT , now retired, was an audience interactive production by Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes. Set in “The New Now”– a time when written language has been suppressed and forgotten – we find ourselves in the secret illegal camp of She, The Keeper of The Lost Hand. Aided by her confidant and fool, the mysterious showman Me, The Keeper reads and writes the illegal cursive love letters for the pilgrims who find her in a series of ceremonies.
The tandem tale of Zacko Budaydos and His Dancing Bear illustrates the turmoil of The Before when the little humpbacked itinerant performer relied on his wits, his love, and the underground language of Polari to survive.
The audience are onstage during the entire performance, each given a one-of-a-kind hand puppet to portray their Other, becoming the mob, the ruling class, the oppressed, a puppet chorus both witnessing and propelling the story as it unfolds.
FORGET ME NOT is a tender, absurd, romantic, provocative call-to-arms for poetry and hope, and a vital theatrical love letter for increasingly uncivilized times.
Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh
Photo by Jorge Ayala Isaza
Photo by Dahlia Katz
Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh
Penny Plain
Retired Production
These are the End Times: Climate change and a related mutating virus are decimating mankind . The one island of calm in all this turmoil is the boarding house run by the blind woman Penny Plain. The cast of characters parade in and humor, no matter how dark ensues…
Retired Production
For anyone stuck in the middle – mid-career, mid-love, mid-life – caught between our own past and future, this requiem for a golden boy shines a little light on the wonder of youth meeting the wisdom of age with a kick in the pants to finish what we started.
Retired Production
Darrel is a simply simple middle-aged man who lives with his mother. When she dies in her sleep, Darrel does not realize she is gone, and so, for ten days, he lives alone. 10 Days On Earth asks: If you were alone, but didn’t know it, would you feel lonely?
PROVENANCE
Retired Production
Set in Vienna, Provenance explores beauty: our obsession with it, our fantasies about it, our addiction to it and our ownership of it.
Retired Production
Happy introduces us to the engaging title character, a “happy-go-lucky” veteran and pensioner who wanders through episodes of grief in other people’s lives. Writer and performer Ronnie Burkett examines the impact of cataclysmic sorrow in human existence
Retired Production
Based on the illegal puppet shows staged in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, Tinka’s New Dress examines propaganda versus truth, compliance versus censorship, and the collective society versus the individual.
Retired Production
Edna Rural, a “good woman” from the prairies who does her duty both in church and in the home, by raising — and painfully accepting — a son, Eden, who turns out to be homosexual, burying a husband who contracted AIDS from tainted blood and finally acknowledging out loud her own status as HIV positive.
“Puppetry is always thought of as for kids, and cute, little, soft, talking animals. And so I’ve spent the better part of two decades trying to wrest the form from that preconception.”
“For me, the true monsters have always been my own species. Right from the start I’ve always been interested in shrinking people down to take a closer look.”
“I am a good sponge. I watch what is going on around me and then I use it.”